I've always preferred the original "Cage" version of the Keeper's voice. Just my own personal tastes.

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I always preferred the altered "Menagerie" voice for the Keeper. It sounded more, well, alien. And the weird pitch made the voice sound androgynous, fitting the neuter appearance of the Talosians (who, as we know, were played by women).

The voice of the keeper was done by actor Malachi Throne.
[LEFT]When footage of The Cage was used for the two part episode The Menagerie additional dialog for the Keeper needed to be recorded because the character addresses Captain Kirk by name. Throne was called in to reprise his voiceover and was also cast as Commodore Mendez (most likely a cost saving measure–two birds with one stone, so to speak). During post production it became obvious with repeated listening's of the audio track that the Keeper and the Mendez character's voice were done by the same actor. To solve this problem the recording of Throne's Keeper voice had its pitch changed. [/LEFT]

[LEFT]Long before digital pitch shifters, there was the Eltro Information Rate Changer, a 1/4" tape machine with four play heads mounted on a rotating drum.[/LEFT]

as alchemist mentions the Eltro Information Rate Changer harkens back to the phonogene which was created in 1953.

The initial phonogenes were manufactured in 1953 by two subcontractors: the chromatic phonogene by a company called Tolana, and the sliding version by the SAREG Company (Poullin 1999). A third version was developed later at ORTF.

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pitch shifting:

An effect which enables a user to transpose the pitch of the input signal.
Pitch shift devices often allow the user to mix the input signal with the effected signal, thus creating a thicker, richer sound (e.g., parallel octaves or fifths). Some pitch shifters can also add very tiny shifts in pitch, thus creating a chorus-like effect.

Well, I found this comment in Solow's and Justman's book Inside Star Trek: The Real Story:

"Later, while dubbing various episodes, we took reality one step beyond. We rented a special machine that was used to change the pitch of people's voices without affecting the speed of the sound track, thereby keeping the dialogue 'in sync' with the picture. Although the device was large, clumsy to handle, and expensive, it helped make alien humanoids sound as alien as they looked."

So, I still don't get how this 1966 "black box" worked, but I take Bob Justman at his word that there was indeed some large, clumsy, expensive tehcnology available to have changed the pitch of Malachi Throne's voice--and, off the top of my head, probably Cloud Williams' in "The Omega Glory" and Lt. Mira Romaine's in "The Lights of Zetar."

Re: Just saw "The Cage" on TOSR- Help me out here...the Keeper's voice

My main point is that they ran the soundtrack through some device to change the tonality without changing the playback speed. My speculation of what that device might actually be is irrelevant, the main point remains, and has been confirmed.

Re: Just saw "The Cage" on TOSR- Help me out here...the Keeper's voice

Someone probably already brought it out, but Meg Wyllie(sp?), the lead Talosian showed up on Night Court...just Brent Spiner would do...and that guy who portrayed an courtroom officer extra (who I would see as an extra on TNG)...

I don't know the name of that guy, so maybe someone could help me out...

Re: Just saw "The Cage" on TOSR- Help me out here...the Keeper's voice

Oh, and a good example of Roy Jensen's natural speaking voice is in the John Wayne film "Big Jake." he plays the leader of the gang of thugs that tries to steal the strongbox from Jacob McCandles and his sons. John Wayne's Jacob kills him by shooting him from the shower stall with his 'greener' shotgun. His voice is quite a bit higher in pitch than Cloud William's.